It has been widely expected for the past two months that NVIDIA would be releasing a new lower-end graphics card based on its Pascal architecture, and after a few leaks and a lot of rumors, the company finally coughed up the confirmation last week.

This release will be a bit of a one-two punch for NVIDIA, as it'll be tackling AMD's Radeon RX 460 and 470 series head-on with its GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, and it also fills an even lower tier with its GTX 1050. The GTX 1050 Ti should prove to be a great 1080p gaming card, with some potential for 1440p gaming in certain titles (most likely MOBA-esque). With its 4GB framebuffer, the 1050 Ti shouldn't have a bottleneck at this target resolution, but the non-Ti model could, as it comes equipped with just 2GB. Yep - even in 2016, we're still seeing GPUs with these relatively shallow frame buffer memory configurations.

Well, we can assume all we want about NVIDIA's upcoming cards, but if AMD reacts before their release, that's a sure-fire sign that the cards are highly competitive. We reported last week on a supposed price drop, and now, thanks to updated etailer listings, we can see that's in fact actually happening.

At Newegg right now, Sapphire's RX 460 can be had for $99, which is $10 less than the MRSP. With an XFX model, we also see a better-priced RX 470, currently at $180, which is at least $20 less than the others. The love continues over at Amazon, with a GIGABYTE RX 460 being sold for $100 after a mail-in rebate. The big boy RX 470 version of the same series is selling for $184 after mail-in rebate. In our opinion, the GIGABYTE RX 470 is a bit more attractive due to its use of dual fans and its inclusion of an 8-pin PCIe power connector, for possible improved overclocking.

While the number of models available right now on discounts is modest, we're hoping this is a sign of things to come and that more will follow-suit over the next week.